Update: This article describes my initial thoughts on a proportional voting system involving exactly two MPs per riding. I later found out about Dual Member Proportional (DMP) a fully developed system similar in essence to the one described here.

As Canada considers its options for electoral reform, I put forward a new voting system called Cooperative Proportional (CP).

The system is cooperative in two regards. First, instead of choosing a single candidate to run in a riding, a party chooses one candidate and one co-candidate who cooperate to win votes. Second, instead of electing a single MP to represent their riding, voters elect one representative and one co-representative who cooperate to serve the constituents. A riding’s representative and co-representative may be from the same party or from different parties, or one or both could be independents. They should have equal standing in the House of Commons, and their riding-level decisions should be made by consensus. Although two MPs are elected in each riding, the ridings would double in size so that the total number of seats remains the same.

Canada’s newly elected Prime Minister has pledged to replace the current First Past the Post voting system (see this article). The promise draws attention to more advanced voting systems such as Single Transferable Vote (STV) and Mixed-Member Proportional (MMP). These systems tend to confuse people, so I’ve picked out a few videos that explain them quite well.